LAST SEASON
Next to the Panthers’ run to the 1995-96 Stanley Cup Final, last season was easily the most memorable in franchise history. The Panthers’ star-studded lineup, having added Sam Reinhart via offseason trade, produced the most scintillating offense of any team in 26 years. Their average of 4.11 goals per game was the highest since that of the 1995-96 Pittsburgh Penguins.
With left winger Jonathan Huberdeau setting a single-season franchise record with 115 points and center Aleksander Barkov continuing his dominance as a two-way pivot, the Panthers were the class of the league, winning a franchise-record 58 games and capturing the Presidents’ Trophy with 122 points. They did so despite replacing head coach Joel Quenneville with Andrew Brunette after just seven games when Quenneville resigned because of his role in covering up the 2010 Chicago Blackhawks sexual assault scandal.
The Panthers even loaded up at the trade deadline, adding center Claude Giroux and defenseman Ben Chiarot, and entered the playoffs as a top Stanley Cup contender. Then they hit a wall. The Tampa Bay Lightning brushed them aside in a four-game sweep in Round 2. And, evidently, Panthers GM Bill Zito did not take it well. He painted over his roster with broad, bold strokes this summer, sending franchise pillars Huberdeau and defenseman MacKenzie Weegar to the Calgary Flames in a blockbuster trade for power forward Matthew Tkachuk. Zito replaced Brunette, who was a Jack Adams Award finalist, with veteran head coach Paul Maurice.
Will Zito’s instincts prove right? Did this team really need that big of a shakeup after its best regular season ever, or did he make an overcorrection?
KEY ADDITIONS & DEPARTURES
Additions
Matthew Tkachuk, RW
Colin White, C
Rudolfs Balcers, LW
Michael Del Zotto, D
Calle Sjalin, D
Chris Tierney, C
Nick Cousins, LW
Marc Staal, D
Gerry Mayhew, RW
Anthony Bitetto, D
Alex Lyon, G
Departures
Jonathan Huberdeau, LW (Cgy)
MacKenzie Weegar, D (Cgy)
Claude Giroux, C (Ott)
Mason Marchment, LW (Dal)
Ben Chiarot, D (Det)
Robert Hagg, D (Det)
Markus Nutivaara, D (SJ)
Noel Acciari, RW (Stl)
Jonas Johansson, G (Col)
OFFENSE
The Panthers were downright historic on offense last season. Huberdeau’s 85 assists set a single-season NHL record for left wingers. They had four 30-goal scorers, six 20-goal scorers and 13 players in double figures. In 5-on-5 play, no team generated more shots, shot attempts, scoring chances or high-danger chances. The Panthers were first in everything.
But do they enter 2022-23 with the same formidable group of scorers? No way. Rental second-liner Giroux left as a UFA. So did Mason Marchment, who delivered an incredibly efficient season as a 5-on-5 scorer. Huberdeau, now off to Calgary, tied for second in league scoring last season. Speedy Anthony Duclair injured his Achilles tendon during offseason training and is expected to miss a significant portion of the season in a best-case scenario depending on how his recovery goes.
So the Panthers will be hard-pressed to duplicate last season’s otherworldly offense. That said, they should still be well above average. They lost 100-point man Huberdeau but gained one back with Tkachuk coming over in the same trade. He’s a unicorn, a beastly power forward who plays with the heaviness of a checking-line grinder yet has the soft hands of a perennial all-star. The uniqueness of his skill set is what made Zito pay so much to get him. On top of Huberdeau and Weegar, the price included a 2025 first-round pick.
The Panthers will need Tkachuk to score like he did last season in Calgary. Can he repeat his career year without Johnny Gaudreau and Elias Lindholm? Don’t discount it. Probable new linemate Barkov is one of the game’s best all-around forwards, ranking ninth in the NHL in points per game over the past two seasons. The Panthers can also mix and match Reinhart and the underrated Carter Verhaeghe in the top six. With Sam Bennett and stellar sophomore Anton Lundell fortifying the second and third lines up the middle, this team will still score plenty. Aaron Ekblad will continue to contribute major offense from the back end, too.
DEFENSE
The Panthers scored a ton last season but defended merely adequately, ranking in the middle of the pack in 5-on-5 expected goals against per 60. They got into many a track meet, scoring at least five goals in a whopping 32 games but allowing five-plus 14 times and four-plus 22 times. A perfect example of their firewagon identity: they allowed exactly four goals 15 times and managed a winning record in those games.
In Barkov and his emerging clone Lundell, the Panthers have two responsible two-way centers. Barkov has typically matched up against other teams’ top forwards, but Lundell should start to earn more responsibility, too, after a superb rookie season as a play-driving third-liner. Florida’s D-corps looks far shakier this season, however. Ekblad remains the horse who will play monster minutes in all situations, but he suffered freak leg injuries in back-to-back seasons, testing the Panthers’ depth. Previously, it was the primo shutdown artist Weegar who helped Florida survive without Ekblad. Trading him and not replacing him leaves a gaping hole on the Panthers’ blueline. They had the league’s No. 16 penalty kills and sat 22n.d in goals against last season with Weegar. What happens without him?
Gustav Forsling has proven a capable partner who can hang with an elite player on his right side and is thus the logical choice to play with Ekblad, but things thin out behind them. Bruiser Radko Gudas or puck-mover Brandon Montour will have to elevate to the top four on the right side, and a left side featuring Forsling, Lucas Carlsson and Marc Staal looks shaky. Carlsson impressed in limited duty but only has 58 NHL games to his name playing 13 minutes a night. Calle Sjalin, signed from the Swedish League, has potential, but his transition to the North American game is difficult to project.
GOALTENDING
The Panthers more or less got the goaltending they needed to be successful last season – just in a different way than expected. All-world prospect Spencer Knight had wrestled elimination-game starts away from Sergei Bobrovsky in the 2021 playoffs and Knight was thus expected to push his $10 million battery mate hard for the No. 1 job in 2021-22. Alas, Knight struggled early on, Bobrovksy had the more consistent year, and we enter 2022-23 with the hierarchy unchanged.
Bobrovsky, coming off a season in which he won an NHL-best 39 games and posted a .913 save percentage, is the 1A. But don’t sleep on Knight, 21. He found his game late last season, winning NHL rookie of the month for April. He should steal a bigger chunk of the workload this season.
COACHING
It’s hard to blame Brunette for feeling jilted after he helped the Panthers stay dominant despite Quenneville’s shocking departure. But the Panthers’ humiliating Round-2 defeat, in which they managed just three goals in four games against Tampa, was enough to convince Zito that his team needed a new voice.
Maurice is arguably known for his voice, his charisma, more than any other trait. Sitting seventh all-time on the NHL’s coaching wins list with 775, he’ll command the players’ respect and drag them into the fight. That seems to be what the Panthers want most.
Maurice also has the most losses in NHL history at 681, however, and has missed the playoffs more often than he’s made it in his career. Sometimes his personality casts a larger shadow than his actual coaching legacy. His experience will be valuable to a team looking to get over the hump, but that experience isn’t all successful. He’s reached one Stanley Cup Final and escaped the second round of the playoffs just three times in 24 seasons.
ROOKIES
In recent seasons, the Panthers have been so deep and stacked that rookies have had a hard time cracking the lineup. Zito even deemed one of the team’s recent first-round picks, right winger Owen Tippett, expendable and used him in the Giroux trade last season. Now, with Florida’s depth depleted and Duclair hurt, the odds of a rookie making a splash are much higher this season.
The Panthers could really use a breakout from 2018 first-round pick Grigori Denisenko, whose development was slowed by a knee injury last season. With his fiery, heart-and-soul style and scoring touch, he has the potential to be a true game breaker. But he’s 22, four years removed from his draft year and inching toward “Is it going to happen?” territory. Playmaking pivot Aleksi Heponiemi could get a longer look in training camp. Mackie Samoskevich is returning to NCAA Michigan but is a name to remember if he turns pro in the spring after the college season.
Sjalin, 23, comes over from Leksand and brings smooth puck-moving acumen. He could make an impact in 2022-23 given how thin Florida looks on the left side of its blueline.
BURNING QUESTIONS
1. Did the Panthers sell their soul? Zito deserves credit for pushing all his chips in, but has the pursuit of glory gone too far? To get Tkachuk and, last season, a few months of Giroux and Chiarot, the Panthers surrendered Huberdeau, Weegar, Tippett and their first-round picks in 2023, 2024 and 2025. They burned their 2022 first-rounder and goalie prospect Devon Levi to get Reinhart, too. They have gutted their pipeline but have also suffered significant losses to their win-now personnel. Tkachuk, who has signed a max-term extension, needs to be worth it.
2. Can the Panthers win the Battle of Florida? The Lightning have ousted them in consecutive seasons and seemed to be in their heads last year. There’s a good chance that the road out of the Atlantic Division bracket in the postseason will go through Tampa yet again. Can Maurice inspire his troops to slay that Minotaur?
3. Is this the year Spencer Knight takes over? With Bobrovsky carrying a $10 million AAV for three more seasons after this one, he’s still not a logical trade candidate – from an acquiring team’s perspective and from a salary retention perspective – so he should remain a Panther at least another year and play plenty of games. . But Knight is unquestionably the goalie of the future and likely the team’s better bet for postseason success.
The playoff sample size is big enough for ‘Bob’ now that it’s fair to label him a poor clutch performer. Among active NHL goalies with at least 50 career playoff appearances, he ranks last in SV% at .901. Florida would be wise to groom Knight for playoff starting duty, and doing so might mean giving him a larger share of starts in 2022-23, perhaps something in the 50/50 range.
PREDICTION
The Panthers are still Stanley Cup contenders. Between Tkachuk, Barkov, Ekblad, Reinhart and the improving Lundell and Knight, they have the high-end talent to contend for the Atlantic Division crown. But this team is far more top heavy than it was a year ago. Its identity has changed drastically. The losses far outweigh the gains. Expect the Panthers to slip back in the pack and fight among the middling contenders for a playoff spot. Their range of outcomes is now wide. They could win the Stanley Cup or miss the postseason altogether.
